Conservatism Is Dead....American Is Finished....All Is Lost

Wrong.  Conservatism is not dead...the Republican Party is not caput....and certainly America is not finished. 

I can understand the gloominess and existential despair on the part of you Republicans right now.  It was a devastating defeat on Tuesday, and we on the other side know about devastating defeats and despair (think 2000 and 2004).  So, you folks who lost Tuesday, you will feel better before too long.  Trust me, life goes on, and the political pendulum can swing VERY quickly.

What SHOULD be dead, of course, are the lies that you were fed by the Rightwing Fun House and that many of you got sucked into:  that Barack Obama isn't a real American, that he's not a Christian, that he is a Marxist, that he is an Appeaser of our enemies, and that he is lazy and stupid.  If those radical and crazy ideas are not lying mortally wounded in the midst of you, then heaven help us all, because you will never recover and make the changes that you need to make.  And America will pay a big price as well.

But I think you will recover.  The Republican Party is a great political party, the Party of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon (whom I admire more than some of you do), Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush.  These were great politicians and great American leaders, all of who can provide you with inspiration as you bind your wounds and heal.  And there are new young leaders coming along who are potentially just as great.

Likewise the Conservative movement.  It has a long and glorious tradition in American and in the West in general, with important thinkers and activists to imitate and revere: Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley, Irving Kristol, Friedrick von Hayek, Whittiker Chambers, Milton Freedman, George Will, and the list goes on.  We need a strong and vibrant conservative movement to bring balance and traditional wisdom to our national debate.

But the fact of the matter is that you all simply got too extreme in the last number of years (just like the Democratic Party did in the 70s and 80s).  And now that you have lost two big Presidential elections and also lost the Senate when it could easily have been yours, it is time for you to recalibrate, just like your GPS does when you've missed a turn in your car.

So, don't despair, just recalibrate.  You're going to be fine, because there's another turn just another block or two away, and you'll soon be back on the correct route.

If you recalibrate....